Tag Archives: digital

This is not a collection of beautifully arranged Danish plastic. Nope. This is a collection of beautifully arranged pixels. Yup, this stunning looking image – the product of three different builders – shows only a render of a virtual model.* But one that looks so unfathomably real that it fooled the whole TLCB office. Previous bloggee Sir.Manperson is the architect behind it and you can see more and read about the collaboration at both his MOCpages and Flickr photostream.

*We sometimes get asked why we don’t feature more digital creations. Today’s creation, despite being a digital render, proves our point. Real bricks, even the illusion of real bricks, are where it’s at.

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Yes, we know, this isn’t made from real bricks, and as such the Elves are a bit grumpy (we’ll be publishing their finds in a bit), but we do only post a digital creation in exception circumstances. And these are exceptional circumstances. Because this Porsche 944 by Sam the First is absolutely perfect.

Sam assures us that it’s all above-board too, with all pieces connected as they should be, and nothing ‘floating’ as is often the case with digital builds. You can see how Sam has done it by visiting the build on Flickr or MOCpages, whilst we get back to real bricks…

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Yes, yes… this is a digital build, but rules are made to be bent. Plus we really like Futurama! It helps that this replica of the Planet Express ship, digital though it may be, is an utterly perfect mini-figure recreation of the famous cartoon vessel, right down to the complete interior. Nicola Stocchi is the designer behind it and you take a trip to the world of tomorrow by clicking here.

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We rarely post virtual creations here at TLCB, but today is Back to the Future Day (the date that Marty travels forward to in back to the Future Part II) so it seems appropriate to go digital!

This lovely LDD recreation of Biff‘s Ford Super Deluxe from the Back to the Future franchise comes from Flickr’s Peter Blackert, and you can climb on your hoverboard and head over to view more by clicking here.

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The Elves are going hungry at the moment, because for the last few days they haven’t found a thing. Luckily for us, you guys have, and so today we have three of your finds. On the left is MOCpages’ Jase G’s ‘Little Bit of Muscle‘, which the Elves would probably like to have found themselves, in the centre is a lovely Town-scale Chevrolet G20 van by a builder known simply as ‘Ben’, and on the right is Yoong Cherng Ee’s awesome looking Nissan Silvia S13 in full time-attack spec.

You can see more of each model by clicking on the links in the text, and if you’d like to suggest a creation to us here at TLCB you can do so via FlickrMail, the Submission Suggestions page, or by completing the Feedback form. You can also let us know if you’d like guest blogger status – if your english skills are good your words could appear alongside your find here too!

First up (above) is Sam the First (aka Sir. Manperson)’s digital ‘Prowler’. We don’t often feature digital creations here, and Sam immediately put himself at a disadvantage in the competition by choosing to build in virtual reality. But Sam must really want the awesome prizes up for grabs and has gone all out to tick as many boxes on the Elves’ wishlist as possible. Bright colour? Check. Racing stripes? Check. Violence potential? Big check. He’s even added a pair of Elves to the build to score himself some bonus points. You can see more of Sam’s entry on Flickr at the link above.

The second creation in today’s post comes from fellow Flickr builder and previous bloggee Calvin Sun. Calvin’s ‘Elves of Hazard’ model also ticks many of the Elves’ boxes, being brightly coloured, big engined and also featuring a rather suave-looking Elf (they really don’t look that good in reality). You can see more of Calvin’s competition entry on Flickr at the link above.

Prizes to be Won!

There are still several weeks to go in the competition, which closes on August 31st 2015. No-one has yet scored full marks, and we’re yet to see a Power Functions RC vehicle capable of Elf smushery entered – a remote control monster truck with racing stripes and an Elf at the wheel would stand a very good chance indeed.

All entries will be judged by TLCB Staff at the end of the competition and the winner will receive two of the brilliant Lego books pictured above from the awesome guys over at No Starch Press, plus the runner-up will also get their hands a top Lego publication too.

How to Enter

You can enter your creation for TLCB Summer Building competition in a number of ways, either here at TLCB, or via our partners on Flickr; LUGnuts and Headturnerz, where each has a discussion thread in which you can post your entry. Good luck!

Built by TLCB regular Sariel, this Technic dune buggy features a few parts that you won’t find with an official LEGO logo on. That’s because they’ve been created using the relatively new phenomenon of 3D printing, which enables a Computer Aided Design (CAD) to be realised for real via plastic moulding.

Over the past few years the price of 3D printing has tumbled, meaning unique parts production is now within reach of many amateur designers and engineers (or morally-bankrupt individuals who think that the ability to print-your-own firearm is something the world needs…).

Fellow previous TLCB bloggee Efferman has put his design skills to use and created a range of custom components that LEGO themselves have yet to officially produce. These include a 5 stud long steering arm (vs. LEGO’s 6 stud long version), a heavy-duty differential, and some wonderfully bouncy suspension springs, all of which Sariel has fitted to his excellent remote controlled dune buggy.

The custom components appear to work beautifully with the standard LEGO Technic used in the rest of Sariel’s creation – especially the springs, which we’d love to test out ourselves (hint!) – and Efferman has designed a wide variety of other custom LEGO-compatible components that are available to purchase online. These include suspension and steering parts, pneumatic tanks, custom wheels, excavator buckets, plus a lot more that we’re not clever enough to understand.

You can view Efferman’s extensive range of unofficial 3D printed Lego components by visiting the Shapeways Store, plus you can see more of Sariel’s dune buggy demonstrating some of these parts in action via MOCpages at the link above, or by watching the ace video below.

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Here at The Lego Car Blog the creations we blog are unearthed by our unpaid and unusual workforce of smelly little Elves, bred especially to find the best Lego vehicles on the net. They’re fed based upon the success of their search and – sometimes – they’re also awarded an appropriately coloured Smartie upon each successfully blogged find.

This incredible creation by Digital Dreams therefore gave us quite a headache, because just look at how many cars there are! Luckily for us they’re all digital, and thus if we were feeling really mean the intrepid Elf in question would have only received a digital tube of Smarties. However, so good is this creation that we gave the Elf a choice of Smartie, and ensured the canteen actually fulfilled the recommended Elf allowance of vitamins and iron.

So, one happy and – at least briefly – healthy Elf later we have quite a design to show you. This astonishing creation is a 192 car Autostadt tower, inspired by the two real-world versions that Volkswagen have installed at their Wolfsburg manufacturing plant. There are 26,000 virtual Lego pieces in Digital Dreams’ MLCad version that took a colossal 70 hours to digitally render. There’s a huge gallery of images available and you can see all the renderings of of Digital Dreams’ spectacular Autostadt tower on either Flickr or MOCpages.

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We rarely like fictional cars here at TLCB, and we like even less of them built digitally. This is because most seem to suffer from the same afflictions that blight the endless real-world supercar start-ups from ambitious but naive millionaires; They’ll all do 300mph and have a million horsepower. Except of course that they won’t. Because they’re crap.

However today we came across one that we do actually rather like, because it’s not, well… crap. Teen Fan Of Lego Sir.Manperson / Sam the First is the designer and he makes his TLCB debut with his digitally rendered ‘Prowler’. It’s one fictional car that we’d like to see built! Buy some bricks Sam…

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Our second LDD creation in as many weeks! What’s going on? The Elves are pretty grumpy about this as they don’t like digital creations as a rule. Plus this isn’t even a car, so they’re doubly annoyed.

This amazing digitally rendered creation is in fact a 1941 De Havilland Mosquito fast bomber, one of the most important aircraft for the Allies throughout World War Two. Built almost entirely from wood, the Mosquito was one of the fastest aircraft in the world at the time. Not just fast for a bomber, but faster than many fighters too. Digital Lego specialist Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) is the builder, and he’s got a rapidly growing portfolio of famous aircraft on Flickr. You can see more of the Mosquito and his other planes via his excellent photostream.

And if you’re of an Elvish persuasion, don’t worry – we’ve got a busy day that’s back to normal cars (mostly) after this post!

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There are two happy Elves here at TLCB Towers today. Usually when two of them find similar creations we pick the best one and the loser goes hungry (which has led to some spectacular Elf fights in the past). Today though we’ve decided to feature both finds, because we’re awesome like that. On to the first!…

We often get queries asking why we don’t post more digital creations. You can read why here, however if you’re wondering what the required standard is for a digital creation to appear on TLCB, look no further than MOCpages’ WoorCK and his beautiful Hot Rod. You can see all the spectacular renders on MOCpages via the link above.

Our second creation also takes presentation to the next level, and comes from newcomer Moko on Flickr. You can see more of his superb Town style Hot Rod as well as his other fantastic builds at his photostream via the link above.

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This incredible recreation of the Helicarrier from the Avengers movie franchise was discovered today on MOCpages. It actually breaks two of our own submission guidance rules, being both not a car and being built digitally. But just look at it! Yo-Sub Joo has painstakingly pieced together 22,694 digital bricks to create a model that if it were real would measure over two meters long! You can see all Yo-Sub Joo’s photos of his awe-inspiring build on MOCpages via the link above.

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Another brave Elf today, which comes back to base with a digital creation. Although we do like ‘old-skool’ real brick builds more, this is a photo that stood out above everything.

This is a Hercules C-130 Coast Guard plane, made by mmbace (or Matt Bace, if you are from MOCpages). Making the MOC is one task, editing the image is two. This MOC stands out because of the amazing image of it “in the air”, and Matt’s other shots have a beautiful finish and rendering too.

We’ll give this Elf a medal for its braveness, because hey, we do have a new post. Check out all the images on Flickr at the link above.

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We’re not big fans of LDD here at The Lego Car Blog (Elves are relentlessly analogue…), but when something is this exceptional, we make an exception. The Chevy Suburban might not be the greatest car ever, but this model just might be. Phil Flipson is the creator; it’s there to be appreciated on MOCpages.